Brett Newski’s “Vs The World” video shows the plight of life on the road

Milwaukee folk rocker Brett Newski lives a largely nomadic lifestyle that finds him touring the vast majority of each year. His musical wanderlust has found him touring in six continents (Sorry, Antarctica!), and spending months at a time away from home whilst eking out a career as a professional musician on self-booked tours throughout parts unknown. In 2014 alone, Newski toured Europe twice and throughout South Africa (where he’s much more popular than he is in Milwaukee). He’s currently in New York.

As exhilarating as traversing the world with a guitar seems, it’s a not all pretty. Much of the road dog’s plight is chronicled in Newski’s latest album, American Folk Armageddon. The lyrics in second single “Vs The World” directly confront the hardships of life on tour, and the new video for the song hammers it home.

The Joe Ramos-directed music video takes a lighthearted, semi-autobiographical approach to reenact the price Newski pays as a result of pursuing life as an artist. It shows the singer-songwriter waking up in a variety of uncomfortable places, playing shows to disinterested people in under-attended shows, enduring van troubles, and plowing through his collection of white t-shirts one stain at a time. It was shot in Madison this summer—at Smart Studios and Gennas—during the short window in which Newski was back in the Badger State. Newski’s next Milwaukee show is November 7 at Hotel Foster, a single-night stop that’s partway through his ongoing U.S. tour.